And if you click on the Google Doodle below, and then on the purple arrow on the linked page, it will take you to a page of twelve women’s stories, each comprising a series of illustrated frames with text.

On this day in 1618, Johannes Kepler discovered the third law of planetary motion. Do you know his three laws? If not, go here. On March 8, 1817, the New York Stock Exchange was founded. And, appropriately for this day, it was on March 8, 1910, that the French aviator Raymonde de Laroche became the world’s first woman to receive a pilot’s license. (Speaking of which, I hope to get to the latest Amelia Earhart “finding” later today.) Sadly, Laroche crashed and died nine years later. Here she is in her Voisin aeroplane in 1909:

On this day in 1965, the first US land combat forces to engage in Vietnam landed in that country: 3500 Marines. Exactly six years later, in 1971, the “Fight of the Century” between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier took place in Madison Square Garden in New York City. It was the first time that two undefeated heavyweight fighters faced each other for the championship; Frazier won by unanimous decision after 15 rounds. On March 8, 1974, Charles de Gaulle Airport opened in Paris, and I’ll be landing there in May. Finally, on this day in 1979, the Philips company made its first public demonstration of the compact disc. Now they’re almost obsolete!

Notables born on March 8 in include Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841), Otto Hahn (1879), Cyd Charisse (1922), John McPhee (1931; I love his books), Lynn Redgrave (1943) and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (1948). Those who died on this day include Hector Berlioz (1869), Millard Fillmore (1874), Henry Ward Beecher (1887), William Howard Taft (1930), the Japanese dog Hachikō (1923; the only animal I’ve seen memorialized in this way on Wikipedia), Billy Eckstine (1933), Joe DiMaggio (1999), and the great George Martin (2016).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has climbed up on Malgorzata again, always draping herself over the arm. I’ve seen this many times, but Malgorzata is too softhearted to move the moggie:

Malgorzata: I’m afraid you are not helping.

Hili: On the contrary, I’m forcing you to write slowly and reflect deeply.

Insect of the day. Baeus is her name and destroying spiders is her game. This wingless parasitoid wasp is about the same size as this full stop. She's the shape of the spider egg she developed in. (Photo @OSUCatOSU and Elijah Talamas). pic.twitter.com/sJWEW8hbPC

Whenever I attend some dull course or training event & you have to introduce yourself I start to stand & say “I’m Spartacus”…
Jerry’s mate Steve Jones has a series of terrible jokes he uses in public lectures & for students!

It’s the crucifixion scene near the end of the film, when a Roman soldier has come with orders for Brian to be taken down from the cross. All of the others on the crosses start calling out “I’m Brian!”, including the rather posh man Gregory, who is there side-by-side with his wife, who calls out “I’m Brian, and so is my wife!”.

I clicked on it(unwisely) and had a read of his Twitter account. It really is one of the most depressing, relentlessly poisonous accounts I’ve ever seen. There’s nothing in it but bile.
I literally cannot imagine being that consumed by hatred on a day-to-day basis and I’d pity him if he wasn’t such a colossally nasty guy.

The post about French aviator Raymond de Laroche, first licensed pilot had me wondering. Possibly France is the first country to actually have and require a pilot’s license. I am pretty sure they did not have them in the U.S. until the 20s.

I had to go back and do a bit of checking. The French had a club, similar to what they had in the U.S. in the early days. A social club that developed training schools and presented licenses to those who passed. It was nothing official but went on for many years before the govt. became involved in flying.

I kind of knew this because my grandfather learned to fly in 1927. The CAA was brand new at that time and a guy from the CAA asked him if he wanted to test to get a license. Actually called a certificate. He asked the guy at the airport and the instructor told him to forget about that guy and just get your airplane and fly. Anyway he did go ahead later and get certified and his number was still in the three digits at that time.

I’m not sure just what you mean when you write that Hachiko is ” the only animal I’ve seen memorialized in this way on Wikipedia.” Wojtek, the heroic WWII Polish bear, who served in the army (was at the Battle of Monte Casino), has a Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_(bear), though his birth and death dates are calculated only to the year. Does this count “in this way”?

And it’s this man’s 73rd birthday. Considered to be one of the greatest pop/rock vocalists of his era. Here he is singing live to the backing track in 1967, filmed by Bob Rafelson (Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, etc.) Dig those colours, man.

As someone who has always been on the left, the corporatizing of leftist politics really disgusts me. My disgust is not for the corporations, as they always follow trends in attempts to court demographics. What truly grabs my goat and brings it to a slaughterhouse for execution, packaging, and distribution is that left-wing activists are now demanding and elated by corporations making symbolic gestures like this. Today’s generation of slacktivists have completely abandoned working class people, economic issues, and fighting for them in the realms of living wages, better job conditions, etc. Instead, much of the left — the loudest, most self-righteous portion that shuts down disagreement because they believe themselves to be so morally pure and fighting for the rights of others — seems to think actions like this by Macdonald’s are their greatest achievements and what they focus on the most (besides getting diversity in enormous Hollywood movies). They don’t seem to care about real issues that affect the working classes and the poor. They will cheer exploitative corporations like heroes as soon as those corporations make the slightest superficial gesture toward a progressive statement that costs the companies nothing. They’re giving free publicity and unwarranted praise to the same organizations they should be fighting to curtail power simply because it makes them feel like they’ve accomplished something.

“What an achievement! McDonald’s turned their logo upside down to celebrate Women’s Day! And Google made a doodle on X day celebrating a female scientist! We’ve done it!”